Eurozone central bankers, struggling to boost a flagging recovery, have received help from Beijing for their 1.1tn quantitative easing plan thanks to sales of German government debt by the People’s Bank of China.

正在竭力提振疲弱经济复苏的欧元区央行官员们在1.1万亿欧元量化宽松(QE)计划上获得了北京方面的帮助，中国人民银行(PBoC)出售了所持一部分德国政府债券。

The PBoC’s reserve management wing, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, has been selling some of its German government bonds since the ECB began buying them in March, say two sources close to central banks in China and Europe.

接近中国和欧洲央行的两个消息人士表示，自欧洲央行(ECB)从今年3月开始购买德国国债以来，中国央行的储备管理部门——国家外汇管理局(SAFE)一直在减持这些债券。

Safe does not deal directly with eurozone central banks, which purchase bonds from investors via banks’ bond trading desks. But its sales of German bonds are making life easier in the dealing rooms of Europe’s monetary powers, where traders have been handed the difficult task of finding 60bn of mostly government debt to buy each month as part of the QE package.

外管局并不直接与欧元区各国的央行进行交易，后者通过银行的债券交易部门向投资者购买债券。但中方出售德国债券使欧洲货币主管机构交易部门的日子好过了一点，这些部门的交易员面临一项艰巨的任务：每个月都要找到600亿欧元的债券（以国债为主）买下，作为QE计划的一部分。

Concerns over the whether the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, could find enough German bonds to buy have long surrounded the QE programme. The Bundesbank must purchase around 10bn of bonds a month — a potentially problematic amount due to low levels of debt issuance by the German state, although ECB officials have repeatedly played down these concerns.

关于德国央行(Bundesbank)能否找到足够德国国债可以买下的担忧，一直困扰着QE计划。德国央行每月必须买入约100亿欧元的债券，这个数额潜在是一个问题，原因是德国政府发债不多。欧洲央行官员一再淡化这些担忧。

The Bundesbank has scoured the world for sellers, according to one person familiar with the matter, including Safe. Under pressure to make a return on its reserves portfolio, Safe has agreed to take advantage of the high prices on offer for low-yielding German bonds.

据一位知情人士透露，德国央行在全世界寻找卖家，包括中国的外管局。外管局在国内面临压力，要求其使外汇储备投资组合产生回报，于是同意利用买方为低收益率的德国国债开出的高价格。

“Chinese sales of German Bunds would certainly facilitate the ECB’s quantitative easing operations, so this is an instance where the interests of the ECB and PBoC are congruent,” said Eswar Prasad, economist at Cornell University and former China division head at the International Monetary Fund.

“中方出售德国国债，肯定会有助于欧洲央行的量化宽松操作，所以这是欧洲央行和中国央行利益一致的一个实例，”康奈尔大学(Cornell University)经济学家、曾执掌国际货币基金组织(IMF)中国部的埃斯瓦尔渠拉萨德(Eswar Prasad)表示。

Sales by Safe, thought to hold hundreds of billions of euros-worth of European government debt, would also help the ECB should an emerging market slowdown threaten the single currency area’s recovery and force a more aggressive package of monetary easing.

据信持有数千亿欧元欧洲政府债务的中国外管局减持此类债务，也将在新兴市场增长放缓一旦危及欧元区经济复苏、迫使欧洲央行采取更为激进的货币宽松政策的情况下，帮助欧洲央行。

Officials in Frankfurt are expected to revamp QE in December in response to the slowdown, pursuing options that include extending their deadline for bond purchases past the current limit of September 2016 or upping their monthly count for bond buying from the current level of 60bn.

预计法兰克福的官员们将在12月对经济放缓做出回应，调整QE计划，他们的选择包括延长目前为2016年9月的债券购买截止日期，或者加大目前为每月600亿欧元的债券购买力度。